Subnautica
by bluedragon03
Summary: Gray was stranded, alone, on a hostile alien world when the ship he was on crashed onto an ocean planet with no civilization. His only mission now is surviving, but if he is alone why does he feel like someone is watching everything he does? And what really caused his ship to crash here, what exactly is going on on this world? Cover by tumblr user rchella


***A/N- Alright so, I couldn't resist this. This is based on the game Subnautica by unknown worlds. I got most of the storyline from the wiki, and the logs I pulled from there, with only minor changes to fit my story line, for the authentic Subnautica feel.**

 **Also, before you get into this I want you to know, this very long, and mostly about Gray surviving alone. Juvia is in it, but the story is mainly about Gray. The only reason I'm telling you this now is because this story is sixteen thousand words and I don't want you to go into it thinking it's a long-ass slow burn and waste that much of your life on a story you thought was something else. This is not, in fact, a long ass slow burn, so if that's what you're looking for don't waste your life here, lmao. For those of you who actually read this all the way through, thank you!**

 **X x x x**

" _Caution, collision imminent, abandon ship."_

Gray jumped to his feet and looked around, alarmed. He was alone in his room as the ship began to shake violently, like they were entering an atmosphere and having a rough time of it. _Collision?_ He wondered, _with what?_ He wasn't going to wait around to find out. He grabbed the most important things he owned, jammed them in his pockets, and fled, running down the hall to the nearest life pods.

The ship was, if possible, shaking more violently than before now, making it nearly impossible for Gray to clamber down the hall to the escape pods. He was thrown back and forth with each violent shake, bruising all over. The second time he was thrown to the ground he noticed what had been glaring him in the face from the moment he'd left his room, but he hadn't noticed. This hallway was completely devoid of life. It was empty. He was the only one heading for the escape pods.

 _Where is everybody?_

A glance at his watch told him everything he needed to know. It was this sectors scheduled lunch time so everyone who was usually in this part of the ship would be on the other end, in the mess hall. Gray forced the imagined images of mass panic out of his mind as he climbed into the escape pod and buckled himself in. He waited a few moments to see if anyone else was coming, then hit the eject button and was slammed back into his seat as the pod shot away from the ship.

There was a massive explosion, one that sent his lifepod careening out of control; through the hatch he saw the Aurora go up in flames. He felt a queasiness that had nothing to do with his lifepod's wild decent. The Aurora had been a huge craft, carrying upwards of a thousand passengers for an eighteen month expedition, and now- Gray didn't even want to think of how many had survived that explosion. He could see glimpses of a large mass of blue shooting past the hatch, an ocean?

An ocean was good news. An ocean meant a planet, a planet with water, likely with resources, possibly a breathable atmosphere, and maybe even a civilization capable of providing aid. Hopefully whatever lived on this planet was friendly.

A piece of the wall ripped free, revealing the wiring below, and began to crash through the cabin. Gray only had time to think _dammit_ before it collided with his head and darkness overtook him.

The alarms woke him, screaming obnoxiously, he groaned. _Where am I?_ He thought vaguely, his thoughts muddled. When he opened his eyes the world was tinted red. _Wha-?_ He reached up clumsily and wiped at his face, and everything came back to him when his fingers came away slick with blood. _The explosion, the sheet metal, the fall! Where am I?_ His head was pounding, and he was still finding it difficult to think clearly, but he was present enough to realize that he had been incredibly lucky. That piece of metal could have easily taken his head off.

After a good deal of fumbling he managed to get out of his seat and to his feet, stumbling as the lifepod jolted suddenly. _What's going on?_ The mass of blue he saw through the hatch floated the front of his mind and he realized he must had landed on the ocean. _At least I know the floatation devices are functional,_ he thought, looking up through the hatch to the sky. The frayed wiring was emitting an alarming amount of smoke and sparks, he would need to see to that, and soon. He pulled out his PDA, one of the things he'd had the presence of mind to grab before clambering into this lifepod. He opened it up to the Log and read the most recent entry.

 _Situational Assessment. Time: T+3 hours since planetfall. Lifepod hull: Secure. Communications: offline._

Gray threw a bitter look at the sparking wires. _Gee I wonder what's wrong with them?_ There was another entry below that.

 _Initializing PDA in Emergency Mode. This program will catalog your inventory, record essential information, and issue survival advice as necessary. It has one directive, to keep you alive on a hostile world. Good luck._

There was a bad taste in Gray's mouth. _A Hostile world. Good Luck._ Those words really hammered into him the gravity of his situation. Another loud spark caught his attention, and his eyes snapped to the damage. His lifepod might catch on fire if he didn't act fast. He glanced around to get his bearings. There was the control panel/ interface displaying the same assessment his PDA had given him, a fabricator, a medical kit generator, a fire hydrant, and a storage compartment.

The fabricator looked like it was still in good condition, which was fortunate, he had no repair tool and would need to make one. He opened the storage container and was disappointed to find there were no raw materials. There was a wet suit, two flares, two filtered waters, and two nutrient blocks. Those were all vital survival resources, of course, but he would have to go into the ocean to find materials to make a repair tool with. He quickly changed into the wet suit, folding his normal clothes into the storage compartment and climbed out on top of the lifepod to get a bearing on his surroundings, and was surprised by the sight that met his eyes.

The first thing he saw was the Aurora, a few kilometers away, fractured horribly and burning, though it didn't seem to be sinking. He looked down and discovered that they had landed in the shallows. He spun in a slow circle, hope suddenly filling him, but was disappointed once again when there was no land in sight. Water stretched as far as the eye could see, he sighed, feeling miniscule. A red planet loomed in the sky behind the Aurora, like an evil eye watching his every move.

He turned his eyes once more to the ocean below him, scanning his surroundings. The water was a comforting and familiar blue, though he wasn't sure why this was comforting. What had he been expecting, an ocean flowing red with the blood of the innocent? Well, either way the waves appeared peaceful and friendly. He couldn't say the same for the wildlife, however. The animals here were large and strange. There was no way for him to know if they were hostile or not until he fabricated a scanner, or got up close and personal with them. He made a mental note to save that for later.

 _Atmosphere has been analyzed, and is breathable for humans,_ the notification appeared at the bottom of his goggles; his suit must be interfacing with his PDA. _Handy,_ he thought. At least he didn't have to worry about running out of oxygen. He took a deep breath, and stepped off the top of his lifepod, plunging into the shallow water.

Fortunately, these shallows were abundant with raw materials, and none of the wildlife bothered him. Well, at least not physically. There were giant creatures with huge club like tails making evil cackling sounds that seriously freaked him out. Gray didn't want to find out what would happen if he came in contact with the substance that sometimes ejected from the glowing bulbs on their tails either, so he gave them a wide berth. Whatever it was, it looked like acid. While he was searching for resources his PDA displayed another message on his goggles.

 _The Aurora suffered catastrophic hull failure. Cause: unknown. Zero human life signs detected in 100m range._

He gulped. So had everyone on the ship perished, then? He pushed that thought away, refusing to accept it just yet.

He returned to his lifepod several minutes later and started work fabricating a repair tool, then a scanner. He'd collected just enough materials. He tapped his foot impatiently as the lasers brought his tools into existence, and then immediately started repairing his life pod. Once that was finished an automated message announced all systems were online.

Gray was disappointed to find that there were no messages waiting for him once his communications relay came back online. However, he knew he couldn't sit in misery, he had to get moving if he planned on surviving. He needed to collect more food and resources before the sun went down. He wasn't eager to be in unfamiliar waters like this at night, although he knew that he probably wouldn't be able to avoid going out in the dark forever. Before he set out again he grabbed the medical kit waiting in the fabricator and tended to his head injury, it wouldn't do to attract predators to himself by bleeding into the water.

He slipped back into the ocean, collecting everything he might need to survive, and scanning everything he could think to scan. Pieces of the Aurora were littered even this far out, and considering how far out in the atmosphere they'd been when the ship was hit he wouldn't be surprised if there were chunks of the Aurora scattered across this entire half of the planet. They hadn't even been planning on landing here, they had only meant to perform a slingshot maneuver in its gravitational pull. What had they hit?

 _Detecting increased local radiation levels. Trend is consistent with ongoing degradation of the Aurora's dark matter drive core, due to damage sustained during collision. Continuing to monitor._

Gray's eyes turned instinctively towards the Aurora, though it was too far to see through the water, and felt his stomach churning unpleasantly. How long had he been unconscious for? The assessment of his lifepod had taken place three hours after planetfall, but how much time had passed between that assessment and Gray waking? If the dark matter drive core had truly been damaged and was leaking radiation, well, everything on the ship and in its immediate vicinity was doomed unless they could repair it, or get out of there. He thanked his lucky stars he'd fallen outside of the danger zone.

 _The sun is setting_ , his PDA informed him.

Gray returned to his lifepod, laden with resources and scrap metal to use for titanium. He spent a few minutes converting resources before he stored them in his locker and climbed on top of his life pod. He pulled off his mask and let it hang around his neck as he leaned back to watch the sun set. There was nothing else he could do, for now. He knew nothing about this planet's eco-system, and although almost everything he'd scanned had been harmless, there was no way of knowing what sort of nocturnal beasts came out when the sun went down. Even knowing that, he couldn't help but feel like he was wasting time.

The creatures with the club-like tails, his scanner had called them Gasopods, continued their evil cackling, making what should have been beautiful an eerie and frightening sight. The Aurora continued to burn in the distance. Gray wanted nothing more than to swim straight there and begin searching the wreckage for survivors. It was possible that he could still save some people, but he still didn't have a radiation suit, and going near the wreckage would be suicide.

 _If I can't even get near it,_ he thought bitterly, _then there's almost no chance anyone is still alive in there._ He shook himself. There was still a chance there were other life pods out there. He couldn't be sure he was alone yet. For the sake of his sanity he had to believe there were other people out there. He turned away from the now completely set sun and looked at the opposite horizon. _I wonder if this planet has any moons?_ Slowly, one crept over the horizon. He waited, but no more appeared. _Just one then._

 _If there are no civilizations on this planet then rescue could be months, if not years, away. If it comes at all,_ he thought.

It had been all day, possibly longer, he wasn't sure since he'd been knocked out, and still no signs of help had arrived. There had been no search and rescue teams yet. An impact like the one the Aurora must have had would have drawn attention from anything anywhere on the planet, so surely someone would have arrived by now to check it out. It was looking more and more like they had crashed onto a planet without an intelligent species.

He looked up at the stars, trying to familiarize himself with the constellations. He may as well, it looked like he was going to be there for a while anyway. He'd never been one for stars before, but even he could tell these were different than the ones he'd seen back home. The thought made him strangely homesick. He should have never gotten on the Aurora, he should have stayed home with Lyon and Ur, but he'd wanted to go on an adventure, and now here he was; stranded far away from home.

He sighed and climbed back inside his lifepod, closing the hatch and slinging off his mask. He pulled his clothes out of the storage container and used them to rest his head on, and did his best to get some sleep. He'd be needing it.

For the second time in two days Gray was woken by alarm bells, though this time his head felt much less like there was something thrashing around inside of it. He got to his feet right as the automated message began playing.

 _Emergency: Seismic readings suggest a quantum detonation has occurred in the Aurora's drive core._ Alarm bells began going off in Gray's head to match the ones playing in his life pod. He clambered up the ladder to the top of his life pod and squinted in the light, turning to face the Aurora. _The reactor will reach a supercritical state in T- 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4-_ the voice became garbled, like there was interference, _3, 2, 1-_ There were a few seconds of silence in which Gray thought maybe the computer had been wrong, until-

 _BOOM._

A deafening explosion rocked the Aurora, it's shock wave so powerful he could see it pushing the water away from the crash sight. It knocked him off his feet, forcing the air out of his lungs as pieces of the Aurora flew through the air and crashed into the water. If Gray hadn't already been knocked on his backside he would have fallen to his knees as he took in the sight before him.

 _That's it, then,_ he thought. _There's nothing on alive on that ship anymore. I couldn't save them, not any of them. There's nothing I could have done._

He slammed his fist down, cursing his own helplessness. All those lives, all those people. He hadn't known any of them, not really. They'd been thirteen months into their eighteen month journey, but Gray hadn't really gotten to know anyone, not even his roommate, he'd mostly kept to himself. How long would it be until the Aurora was tracked back to this planet? Until people even realized that they were missing?

Suddenly overwhelmed by another wave of homesickness, he got to his feet and climbed back down the ladder and rummaged in the storage container, pulling out one of the things he'd thought to bring with him on the lifepod. It was one of the only personal items he'd brought onto the Aurora, and Gray was now immensely glad he'd brought it. It was a photograph of himself, his brother Lyon, and his adoptive mother Ur back when he was still little. He set it up on the bench and sat back, looking at it, feeling his eyes burn. Would he ever see them again?

He started when something hot and wet slid down his cheek, then reached up and wiped the tears away. He didn't have time to cry, he needed to begin building a more permanent habitat, he'd need something bigger and with more storage availability than what he had now. But where? He'd need to decide carefully. Though he didn't like to think about it, he'd probably be there long enough to merit building multiple bases all around the planet, but where should his home base be?

These shallows were close to the surface, which would allow him to use solar power, and they were relatively safe, not to mention they were rich in resources. A voice inside him said he should be building a little further from his life pod, but the rest of him said the location of his base wouldn't matter if he were eaten while constructing it. Until he knew more about the environment this place would be his temporary home.

He climbed through the hatch and into the water, looking around. There were plenty of resources, so building here would be a cinch. There were limestone deposits that, if he broke, had copper, titanium, and other minerals he could use. Not to mention salvage from the Aurora could be converted into even more titanium, which was what he would be needing the most of. In no time he had built a foundation for his base, and an hour more he had a multipurpose room with a hatch and solar panels.

Inside he built a fabricator and a window so he wouldn't feel so claustrophobic. It would also help to be able to see outside at night to get a read on what sort of nocturnal creatures inhabited this area. He had a gut feeling there was nothing too dangerous around here, but it couldn't hurt to be sure. He, for some reason, didn't have blueprints in his builder for a bed, so he'd have to find one to scan or do without. As large as the Aurora debris field was it couldn't be too hard.

His mind went back to the Aurora, and its demise. What had they collided with? Were there any other life pods? If so, why hadn't they sent out requests for help? Was he truly alone? The very idea of that felt like a crushing weight on his chest, and he felt suddenly tired, very tired. He returned to his lifepod and transferred his personal belongings from storage to his new, one-room, base. He would build on later, but for now he would focus on amassing a stockpile of resources.

To his surprise, when he stepped back into his lifepod, the automated voice announced he had a message. His heart leapt.

 _This is Lifepod 8 requesting immediate assistance! We have touched down too close to the crash site and radiation levels are too high to disembark. According to the manifest life pods four through seven should be equipped with radiation suits. If anyone can hear this retrieve the suits and converge on our position for evac! Coordinates are attached. This message will now repeat._

Something about this message felt wrong to Gray, but what was it? He stood, puzzled for a moment before shaking himself and turning back around to climb into the ocean. He'd need to make a few radiation suits for the passengers of that life pod, as well as one for himself. Luckily each lifepod only seated two so he wouldn't be frantically trying to make it to them with twelve lead lined suits in hand. When his hand landed on the handle the communications relay announced another message.

 _This is an automated distress signal from Aurora lifepod seven. Coordinates attached. Please send immediate emergency relief team._

Gray raised an eyebrow, checking the coordinates on his PDA. Lifepod seven was on the way to lifepod eight, and if the message was automated that could only mean two things, either the passengers were incapacitated and in desperate need of assistance, or they were dead. Either way, he had to find out. First he had to make himself a rad suit, then he had to get to lifepod seven. It should have its own fabricator, so he need only collect lead along the way.

He moved hurriedly through the water, smashing every limestone deposit he found, growling in frustration when they didn't turn up lead. What felt like hours later he breached the surface, gasping, laden down with enough lead to make himself a rad suit. He swam to his lifepod and grabbed the first rung of the ladder to pull himself up, then froze when his eyes landed on the painted emblem on the outside.

 _AURORA LIFEPOD 5._

What had eight's message said? "... _Pods four through Seven should be equipped with rad suits."_ So why hadn't his had one? Was the manifest wrong? And how had that passenger gotten ahold of the manifest in the first place? Were they a crew member? Gray shook himself, he could ask all these questions later, hopefully to other people, but he had to get to them first.

The fabricator couldn't work fast enough as his radiation resistant suit came into existence. He pulled off his wetsuit and pulled the rad suit on hurriedly, but slowing down and taking his time with the fastenings to be sure they were done properly. It wouldn't do for him to die before he got to the lifepods to help.

He decided to take the time to fabricate a sea glide before he left. It took a few extra minutes but he knew it would take more than that off his journey. Once that was finished he plunged into the water and headed in the direction of the nearest lifepod, Lifepod 7, where he hoped he would find someone alive. He had his hardened knife in his belt and was on high alert for dangerous sea life.

He'd found a few predators in his search for resources already, none were too much for him to handle, which was good, considering that he would probably be there for a while.

He was swimming for about thirty minutes, spurred onward by his sea glide, as his PDA displayed the ever shortening distance between him and Lifepod Seven. His growing excitement at no longer being alone was kept in check by the fact that the transmission from lifepod seven was automated, and the pods occupants were probably dead, or dying.

 _Always the optimist, Gray,_ he thought sarcastically.

He was close, so close, he breached the surface to get a look at it, His heart sinking when there was nothing except the crashed Aurora on the horizon, meaning Lifepod Seven was below the surface. He ducked back below the waves and scanned the ocean floor. He felt his stomach fall through his shoes as his eyes landed on it, a huge hole in the side, right where one of the seats should have been.

He turned his seaglide towards the wreck and dove, keeping a careful eye out for what might have done that to the lifepod. He saw something glowing inside the pod, it looked like a PDA. With any luck it would have recorded the occupants last words. He slipped in and took it, glanced around, and left. He wanted to get out of there as soon as possible, he got a bad feeling from this place. He wondered briefly if he should read the PDA before moving on, it could have information he needed to know. He decided to risk it.

 _CREWLOG: Lifepod made planetfall intact approximately one hour ago. Environmental instruments were knocked offline when the Aurora's seamoth bay collapsed around me. With my face pressed to the glass I can make out shadows shifting about in the water below me. Every so often the pod is rocked by some sort of collision. I can't tell whether the pod is bumping up against the rocks, or if there is something out there that's trying to get in. Either way the hull is beginning to buckle._

 _I can see what's left of the Aurora from the top hatch. We were carrying anything and everything we might need to complete the phase gate: mobile vehicle bays, bioreactors, propulsion canons… I'm going out there and scavenge whatever I can find, see if I can reinforce the lifepod hull._

That was the last entry, dated a day before the Aurora exploded. He'd never come back. Gray looked around, there were no rocks for the lifepod to have been bumping against, which left one other option. Something was trying to get in. He had to get out of here. He turned the sea glide towards the next nearest lifepod, Eight. It was a much shorter journey from lifepod seven to where Eight was supposed to be, but there was nothing, neither floating on the water nor laying on the sand below. He was at the coordinates his PDA had given him, and yet there was nothing.

A sick, heavy feeling settled over him. This was eerie, very eerie. He didn't like it one bit. He settled his knees on the sand and began to dig. His fingers hit something hard, something that wasn't sand, and he grabbed onto it, his suspicions confirmed when he lifted the life pods GPS to his eyes. The pod _used_ to be here, but where was it now? He had to get out of here too. It wasn't safe.

X x x x

When he stepped into his lifepod, he was alerted to another new message in his communications relay. He pressed play.

 _This is an automated message from Aurora Lifepod 6, send rescue teams ASAP. Coordinates attached._

Gray sat down. He didn't throw himself out the door immediately like he had done before. He'd been thinking. Those messages, they must have been sent before the explosion, so it had been a few days, and yet he was only just now receiving them. Why were his messages delayed? Was it interference from the Aurora's radiation? The Dark Matter Drive Core had been damaged, right? Maybe he could go onto the ship and repair the leaks. If rescue were to come, he'd need to reply to messages in real time, not a few days delayed, so he would have to stop the leak just in case. He sighed, he would build a communications relay in his base to receive messages that way he wouldn't have to go back and forth constantly. It's not like he was in a hurry anyway, the passengers of lifepod six were probably long dead.

Once the relay was installed he caught a few more fish, filtered some water, and then finally set out for lifepod six, this time prepared for what he would find. He scrolled through the PDA data downloads as he bobbed on the surface. Lifepod six looked much like Lifepod seven had.

 _I've tried everything. If this fabricator were working I'd be watching the sunset from the armchair in my private observatory by now. As it is I can barely manufacture the most basic of materials with this thing. Want a battery?Here, have a children's toy! Need deep sea diving equipment? Have some lab equipment! Hungry? Let me turn that fruit into dust for you! My theory is the situational analysis circuits are fried._

 _I'm going forward with trial and error. If I hit every button on this list, it's got to make something useful eventually._

Gray looked around. He wasn't all that far from the Aurora. He could swing by and look for a bed, but then he might have to swim home in the dark, something he was still not eager to do. He could go another night without a bed, it wasn't that important, so he turned around and swam back to his base, making it back just as the sun set.

He couldn't sleep. He tried to, but to no avail, the voices of the dead bouncing around in his head kept him awake. All of them had their own voices in his head, their own personalities, and now they haunted him. Why were they dead, why was he alive? They'd all landed in dangerous zones, had more severely damaged life pods. He'd escaped their fate only by luck.

The woman from lifepod six, he'd imagined her to be sassy, with a spring in her step and a spark in her eye. The kind of woman you wanted to be around, who laughed easily and made others laugh too. If she had any faults it was that she could be too sarcastic at times. She probably had a family, kids, maybe, all with her fire, except for one, who was quiet and sensitive, but she knew just how to handle them, just how to make them smile and feel confident. She was a scientist, not an engineer, smart enough to figure out what was wrong with her lifepod but not trained to fix it.

The man from Lifepod Seven was probably an engineer. Built small, not physically strong, and braver than he thought he was. He knew what he needed to do to survive, and he found the courage to do so when he had to. He spoke with a certain authority, and he knew much about the ship's contents, perhaps he was the head engineer, overseeing all mechanics, making sure everything was running smoothly. He would have stayed on the ship until it was clear salvation was impossible, and only disembarked the ship once his underlings were on their pods. He was likely an approachable man, confident in his realm of expertise but unsure in many other areas. He braved the waters of this alien planet even though he was out of his depth.

The woman from lifepod eight, well, she had barked out the orders in her SOS like she was demanding compliance, not asking. Gray wouldn't be surprised if she were one of the higher ups on the ship's chain of command. She didn't open her message with her credentials, however, probably in interest of efficiency. She was probably cold and practical, with an intimidating aura. He expected that this was a woman who exuded power, despite not being the highest ranking member on the ship, she would be respected on every level of authority. The person who was with her- she had said 'we'- hadn't spoken. Probably an inferior crew member or a passenger.

Gray shook himself, trying to cast aside these imaginary profile's he'd created for the victims. It wasn't like him to do things like this. He supposed the full weight of his isolation was just starting to take its toll. Nevertheless, he couldn't rid himself of the images of the people's whose messages he'd heard. Maybe if he slept on it he'd feel better in the morning.

He slept, but not well, and he woke up feeling exhausted.

"Might as well get accustomed to the idea of being alone," he said to himself. "I'll be here for awhile."

He decided his next step should be scouting, seeing what was where. He discovered that his PDA had a mapping function, he would only have to enter the data. To his west was a kelp forest where predators his scanner called Stalkers lived, and he could find their teeth scattered through the ocean floor which helped create enameled glass, and the creepyvine and their fruit were sources of several resources.

There were mushroom forests to the south, and of course to the north was the Aurora. He hadn't explored very far yet, but it was a start. There were pieces of the Aurora everywhere. Broken fragments of things he could use were scattered in them, he scanned them, and got blueprints. Thankfully, he found a bed, and a coffee maker. He also found a kitten poster, he took it for the irony.

He spent a few minutes surveying the area around his base room, trying to plan out how he would build and expand. He decided his first expansion room would be a bedroom and it should be placed behind his current room so the window couldn't see into it. It was beautiful to look out at, but sometimes it also gave him the feeling of being watched. He could build a desk to sit at while he charted the land around him, the desk would also be where he would eat. It only took a few minutes to do that much, but the sun was already setting again, he'd spent most of his daylight scouting. His base still had power stored, though, so he spent the next few hours charting what he knew. Once he'd finished he held up his map and admired his work.

It was no professional job, but it would do. It, at least, showed him the relative position of things. Now that it was drawn he could connect it to a hologram on his wall, and it would update automatically as he updated the one on his PDA. He could use it to plan his expeditions, and every trip would make it more accurate. He smiled slightly to himself, he might make it through this after all.

He would have lost track of how many days he'd been there if the date of his planetfall hadn't been stored in his PDA. As it was, a few weeks into his journey, he'd accurately mapped out the nearest biomes, and only yesterday he'd finally found the last piece of the mobile vehicle bay he'd needed to obtain the full blueprints, and now he could build it, and with it he could create better equipment to go farther and collect more.

He hadn't found any pieces of the Moonpool- the docking bay where he could recharge and modify his vehicles. Once he'd built the sea moth he could use it to go farther, get closer to the Aurora, and find more of what he needed. He suspected he'd be able to find lots of things he needed in the Aurora. He wondered what else he would find when he approached. Would he even be able to get in? What was left of the passengers who had been on the ship when it crashed?

Well, there was only one way to find out.

X x x

It took an hour in his newly created sea moth to get to the Aurora. He noted a few promising looking salvage points on his PDA but passed them by, he couldn't afford to get sidetracked. He wanted to spend the entire day on the Aurora, if he could, but first he would need an access point, a hole in the shell big enough to fit his sea moth in. It wasn't hard to find one, he was in relatively quickly, but couldn't get far with his sea moth.

He slipped out and into the water, swimming around the jagged and red glowing edges of the torn steel. He navigated several twists and turns, some almost too narrow for him to pass through until he came out in a large open space he recognized.

 _Warning: Radiation levels at maximum tolerable level._

He was in the drive core containment room. A quick glance around told him there were several breaches in the containment field. He swam up to the nearest one and pulled out his repair tool, hoping this would work.

 _Ten remaining breaches_.

 _Ten more?_ He thought, exasperated. _Well, I've already started, might as well finish._ It looked like half of the room was underwater and half above, by the time he'd finished the underwater ones, however, only two were left. He climbed out of the water and fixed those as well.

 _Drive core breach sealed. Radiation dissipation in three days. Trying download attempt with Aurora black box device. Encountering interference._

Gray took the open door out of the containment room, ducking under a few broken support beams. There were fires burning that he didn't bother to put out, and some of the metal was still red hot.

 _87% of habitable sections were rendered uninhabitable during the detonation._

 _Good to know,_ Gray thought. He looked up at the wall where the navigation signs still glowed. To his right was the Prawn Bay, to his left the Communications Bay. He went to the Prawn Bay first, hoping he'd be able to get the full blueprint for a Prawn Suit, which would be extremely useful for collecting resources. The first thing he saw when he walked in was a drill arm lying on the ground. He scanned it, satisfied, then opened a box and found a grappling arm.

He spent some time rummaging through boxes but found nothing else of use. He froze when he walked through the door to his left; every inch of this room that wasn't underwater was on fire. He supposed it made sense, the grease and other oils that would have been used to keep the Prawn suits in good condition were probably highly flammable. However, across the room hung a nearly intact prawn suit.

Spur of the moment he decided to risk it. He dunked himself in the water once, then made his way across the room as fast as he could. If he burned a hole through his rad suit he could die before he ever got back to his base, but if he ran out of easily mined resources and didn't have a way to get anything else he would die anyway.

He hurried across the room, feeling like his skin was on fire, but knowing that his PDA would alert him if his suit was breached. It probably only took thirty seconds to scan and get the blueprints for the suit before he plunged back into the water to cool off. He didn't bother searching for anything else here, the environment was too dangerous.

He left the Prawn bay and searched the communications bay. He found a PDA and uploaded it's contents to his own, but didn't read them yet, that could wait. There wasn't likely to be any useful information in it anyway. Suddenly the ship made a horrible groaning sound, but otherwise didn't move, so Gray decided to continue exploring. The next door he went through came out on a wide open-air space. Obviously this part of the ship had broken apart, revealing parts that had once been sealed to the open sky. It was comforting to see that he had a good amount of daylight left. There were scattered fires and collapsed structures everywhere, but perhaps the most disturbing thing were the creatures he could see moving in the ruins, and the message his PDA displayed.

 _Caution: The digestive tracts of nearby life forms contain trace amounts of human tissues._

He felt sick, the world began spinning. At least now he knew why he hadn't come across any bodies yet. He ducked back through the doorway and leaned heavily against the wall, trying to get that image out of his head. He wasn't a squeamish person, but this was too much, too much in too little time. The horror of over a thousand people dying and being eaten, so there wasn't even a trace left, it would push him over the edge if he let it, but he had to make it through. He couldn't let it paralyze him.

He took a deep breath and took out his knife, going back out into the room. There were storage containers everywhere, he might find valuable things here. Things that could help him survive. He would just have to kill any of those things that came near him. The first thing that he found was a large filtered water. _Excellent_ , he thought, _my vitals were getting low._ Next he found a nutrient block and a full power cell. He found several more of each of those, and had to fend off a few of those creatures in the process.

They were the strangest things he'd ever seen. They looked oddly mechanical, but the analysis said they were biological. Their main body was one large circle, with a leg sticking out on all four sides. It was _weird_. When he'd picked the area clean he left and began looking for a place that might have modification station fragments or moonpool blueprints. Thinking these things would probably be found in the lower decks where the engineers were, he began heading to the lower decks.

Gray was pleased when he found exactly what he was looking for, and now would be able to modify and repair his seamoth in his base. He didn't spend anymore time than he had to on the Aurora, he didn't like feeling like he was standing on the grave of a thousand people, just waiting for the world to come out from underneath him. He made his way back to his sea moth, laden down with supplies that would make a good emergency store. Altogether it was a successful, yet ultimately uneventful journey until he got his sea moth out into the water, and the ocean was shaken by a loud roar.

 _What the hell?_ He wondered, turning his sea moth around, shouting in alarm.

"WHAT THE HELL? AHH!" He screamed, his sea moth lurching dangerously as the largest, most terrifying thing he'd ever seen took hold of it. It's snakelike body was a soft blue color that allowed it to blend with the ocean gloom, until the large grasping tusk like things around its face that were a deep, blood red. It had teeth like razors as it grasped and thrashed at the windshield of his sea moth.

Gray's heart hammered in his throat as this giant sea monster ripped, tore, and thrashed, trying to get in at him, trying to kill him. His seamoth was beginning to bulk under the pressure. The sound of the hull buckling snapped him out of his terror and reanimated his frozen limbs. He seized the controls and jerked them back, away from the _thing._ Fortunately, it's grasping prongs weren't suited to holding onto sleek steel, and Gray was able to slip away.

He pushed the accelerator as far forward as it would go, speeding away as his sea moth sparked alarmingly. He didn't stop or slow down until he reached the safe shallows, flying through the hatch into his base and landed on the floor breathing hard.

"What the hell was that thing?" He shouted to the emptiness. He had never seen anything like it, and it was much bigger and more violent than anything he'd seen so far. He thought about its large, razor sharp teeth, suddenly very glad he'd waited until he had a sea moth to go to the wreck site. Meeting that thing on his own would be instant death.

He took a few deep breaths, then walked to one of his lockers and deposited the things he had collected before going back outside to look at the damage to his sea moth. He sighed in resignation. It was nearly done in. He took out his repair tool and set to work, spending the next several minutes fixing the damage that monster had done. Next he surveyed his base set up, trying to decide where to build his moonpool. It had to be up off the ground so he could get his seamoth inside, and later a Prawn suit. He'd probably have to build up two more stories just to fit it.

He built two new multi-purpose rooms on top of the one he already had, and the moonpool off to the side. He parked his sea moth inside and got out, walking down the hall and sliding down the ladder into the main room. At the very least he had more space for lockers now. If he'd had other people staying with him the extra rooms could have been bedrooms, but since he was alone, they would remain empty.

Several more days passed, uneventfully. Gray did more scouting, picked several nearby crash sites clean. His map was becoming more and more accurate. He'd even marked danger zones, places he should avoid, the Aurora crash was one such site. He hadn't gone back. Maybe one day it would be worth it again, but as of right now there was no point trying to get past that monster.

That day was the farthest out he'd been, charting out possible new crash sites to look for resources when he surfaced to check the progress of the sun. He gazed out across the horizon, wondering exactly how big this world was. Maybe he would be able to eventually build some type of craft to get _himself_ off this planet. He doubted anyone from Alterra would be able to get to him for years.

He had thought he was hallucinating at first, when he saw it. _No,_ he'd told himself. _It couldn't be. There's no way._ It was an island. An island shrouded by mist in the distance. He blinked a few times and rubbed his eyes, but each time he reopened them the island remained, forcing Gray to accept the reality that he was looking at an island. He smiled, a sweet flood of relief washing over him as he steered his sea moth forward, wondering what exactly he would find on this new terrain.

He could hardly believe his eyes when he got closer, close enough to begin to see through the mist. Bases. There were bases, built by people. There were people here; survivors from the Aurora had made it to this island ahead of him and were living here. All of these thoughts were racing through his head until his sea moth hit the shore and he stepped out and laid eyes on the bases again.

They were old, and broken. No one had lived there in a long time.

Longer, he realized, than he'd been on this planet. This kind of degeneration didn't happen in a matter of weeks. This took years, which brought new questions to mind. How long had these bases been here? Who had built them? Where were they now? There was only one way to find out, and that was to go inside. He hung his goggles around his neck and began climbing up to the lowest base.

The first thing he noticed when he came up level to the base was that the land had slid onto the building and collapsed the back portion. The second thing he noticed were the _things_ moving within the structure. They were the same creatures infesting the Aurora crash site. He drew his knife, wondering if these would be hostile too. He walked the perimeter once, slowly, looking for a way in; the windows of the back room were broken.

He stepped over the jagged glass and into the ruined base, watching carefully for those creatures. There was a PDA on the ground, he picked it up and moved into the other room. He would check it later when he wasn't in an unsafe structure filled with things that eat people. He checked the rest of the rooms and found another PDA and a filtered water, he took them both. He found interior grow beds, places he could grow his own food inside his base, there were even plants already growing inside, he picked several of the fruit and scanned the planters. There were more outside that he repeated those actions with.

Gray went to the base on the left peak next. Those weird creatures were crawling all over the island, but he managed to avoid them. There was nothing of use in the second base, only another PDA, which he took, then headed back down the peak to the other. He had to stop for a rest, it had been a while since he'd walked this far under the hot sun, even on days he spent all day working in the ocean, he was at least submerged in the cool water.

It was a relief to be moving freely on land, in open air, for the first time in what felt like forever. He felt free. Even when he was in his base there was the feeling something weighing down on his shoulders, like the weight of the sea above him was crushing him. He thought briefly about building another base, here, but the creatures crawling through the grass came to mind. Perhaps he was better off in the ocean.

His chest burned with overexertion, he was beginning to feel light headed. It was _hot._ He pulled out the water he'd gotten from the base and downed half of it in one gulp. He pulled out his PDA to check his vital signs, and discovered that he'd been severely dehydrated. He downed the second half of the water and cast the bottle aside; there was no one here to charge him for littering anyway.

He climbed the second peak and entered the other base, finding two more PDAs. There was an observatory he scanned, as well as an armchair, but there was nothing else of use. He made his way more slowly down the mountain this time, being sure not to overheat. The rest of his water was in his sea moth, so if he passed out before he got there he was dead. He made it back to his sea moth alright, and sat inside, sipping water and reading the PDA logs, growing more and more confused.

 _Captain's log, five weeks since our ship, the Degasi, was shot down. I give thanks that fate saw fit to spare my son, Bart, and I from death, but my personal entourage were not so destined. The only other survivor was Marguerit Maida, a cut-price mercenary with local expertise who I reluctantly commissioned for the journey._

 _We spent days in the lifepods, rain beating on the roof, nothing but ocean on the horizon. Just as we were losing hope the weather cleared and we saw this island, this floating oasis. We were saved._

 _We salvaged the Degasi wreck down to its barebones and built this habitat from the scrap. I set Bart to studying the alien plantlife and arranging us a stable source of food, put that expensive digi-training to good use. People can question digi-training and foreign technology all they like. Bart's bio-chem imprint already paid for itself. As I dictate this I'm eating hydroponically-grown potato salad garnished, with seeds that taste like spicy orange peel._

 _Our only problem is Maida. I've caught her muttering that the island's too small to support us indefinitely. That the weather's going to turn on us. I say she's grown superstitious. Every judgement she makes assumes things go from bad to worse, that the only forward is a fight. She ought to take in some context. As a species we've spent millenia learning how to shackle nature to our will. This planet won't cause us any new problems._

 _Our one task now is to stay alive, as comfortably as possible, until rescue arrives. In this part of space that could be months, or even years._

So another ship had crash landed here, years ago. It sounded like it hadn't been an Alteran ship though, probably a Mongolian, perhaps another trans-system gov. What were the odds that another ship went down on this same remote, unpopulated planet, years apart? Could it possibly be a coincidence? He listened to voice recordings and read through the rest of the personal logs and became even more confused. The voice recordings fit in well with what he had already read, arguments over whether or not to leave the island, but it was the son's last entry that confused him.

 _I messed up. Badly this time. It's been two days since what happened. We never should have left this island. I shouldn't have listened to them. We shouldn't have gone so deep. We're not wanted down there. She doesn't trust us. I knew it and I didn't say. I could see it, and they couldn't, and now they're stuck down there, and I'm up here, alone. I deserve this._

It sounded like this log was left sometime after the others. But how long? It seemed like they had ended up leaving the island after the weather got bad, and that they had built a base deep in the ocean, but what had happened? The other two had gotten trapped and the son had left and come back to the island? And who was She? Was it the mercenary? Somehow that didn't feel right. It felt like there was someone else down there, some female entity that he was afraid of.

It sounded like there was a base somewhere deeper, somewhere on this planet that he would be able to find for more clues. He would certainly be looking. This was too much to pass up on, what if there was a connection to what had happened to the Degasi and what had happened to the Aurora? It hadn't passed him by that the Degasi Captain had specifically said his ship was shot down. Gray opened the Log history of his PDA and re-read the messages from the days immediately following the crash.

Though none of them said it, they all seemed to point to some sort of outside interference. The Aurora suffered catastrophic hull failure prior to crash. The alarm system before he had ejected had spoken of an imminent collision. He hadn't been able to download the black box data due to interference, but he had a feeling that now the radiation had dissipated he could manage it. He backed up his sea moth and turned around, heading back towards his base. By the time he got back it would be late, he would think more on this in the morning.

Gray decided to first go and check on the Aurora black box and try to figure out what had really happened to it. While he was there he would work the debris field and try to find anything else that might be of use. But first, he needed to find a way to fight that monster, something that could keep him safe if it showed up again. The only weapon in the registry was a knife, but there had to be something else to defend himself with. What he found was a stasis rifle. It wouldn't kill it, but it would keep it frozen in place for long enough for Gray to get away. It would have to do. He fabricated it and stuck it into his belt. He needed to know what was going on and this was the only way. Meeting with that thing was a risk he would have to take.

He climbed into his seamoth and left, wondering if he would ever make it back.

He didn't stop at any crash sites on his way in, thinking that if he made it out then he could look on his way back. The most important thing was that he make it in and out of the Aurora quickly. The black box would probably be near the dark matter drive core, and now that the radiation leak had been sealed he would probably be able to download the data. After that he would start his search for the deeper base. He was lucky the entrance he'd found on his first visit was so close to what he needed, he wouldn't be wasting any daylight while he was there.

The debris was getting closer, the Aurora was looming over him. He watched carefully for the monster, his eyes on the lookout for the subtle movement of the shadows. He cursed the things skin color, that it was so like the water. He made it to the Aurora alright, got the black box download and was out again. He was just pulling out in his sea moth when it happened, a roar shook his very bones, and seemingly out of nowhere the monster appeared and took hold of his sea moth.

He wrenched at the controls and tore away from its grip. He got some distance away and leapt out of his sea moth. The stasis rifle wouldn't work through the glass. He fired, and the monster froze. He was about to climb back into his sea moth when he had an idea. He got out his scanner and pointed it towards the monster. If he could find out more about it then he might be able to fight it, or at least avoid it better. By the time his scan was complete the monster was starting to regain movement, so he shot it with the stasis rifle again and made his getaway.

He scavenged a few more crash sites for the rest of the day, and then made his way home as the sun was setting. He checked on his grow beds when he got back to his base, and was pleased to see that they were growing well. He would have a steady supply of fruit pretty soon. Maybe he would be eating full meals of meat and vegetables soon, how nice would that be? He ate some cured meat while he looked over his map, trying to guess where the base might be.

The captain's log said the mercenary had wanted to go at least 500 meters down, so they'd probably be in a resource rich environment at about that depth. He knew a few places. Maybe the mushroom forest, or possibly the grand reef? Of the two, the grand reef had more dangerous wildlife, but it was also more resource rich. The way the captain had described that mercenary led Gray to believe that she wouldn't mind a little bit of danger. He would check the grand reef first.

Once he'd done that he opened up his scanner logs and looked over the information for the monster around the Aurora. The logs called it the Reaper Leviathan. He read everything on it, it was classified as an aggressive predator, like he hadn't already figured that out himself. He closed that out and opened up the Aurora Black Box log, his eyes widening as he read.

 _Initiated slingshot maneuver around planet 4546B._

 _WARNING: High velocity energy pulse launched from planet surface._

 _Emergency distress signal sent to Alterra listening buoy._

 _Impact detected. Drive core shield compromised._

 _Life buoys on starboard side compromised._

 _Emergency evacuation initiated, Aurora entering planetary atmosphere._

 _Massive impact registered, main networks offline._

 _Post-analysis:_

 _The energy pulse matched no known planetary defense technologies_

 _Pulse's site of origin has been calculated and downloaded_

 _Distress signal broadcast successfully_

 _Alterra reply received at T+8hrs to high priority terminal in Captain's Cabin, Living Quarters_

So they had been shot down. And he could identify where the energy pulse came from and investigate. This was all good. Well, being shot down was very far from good, but knowing what happened at least was helpful. There was something else there that he had got when he downloaded the black box data.

 _Aurora Auxiliary Mission Orders_

 _Search and Rescue_

 _Crew of the Mongolian vessel "Degasi"_

 _Ariadne Arm_

 _Contact: Emissary Jochi Khsar, Aurora passenger Quarters, room 4_

 _Mission Brief:_

 _A mongolian vessel, the Degasi, disappeared almost a decade ago. Corporate insurance has purchased passage aboard the Aurora for Emissary Khsar, and your orders are to afford them every reasonable facility to locate, and, if necessary, rescue the Degasi crew members, without compromising the primary mission._

 _The Aurora is scheduled to perform a gravity slingshot maneuver around planet 4546B approximately 13 months post launch. This will bring the ship within range of the Degasi's last known position._

So, the Aurora had doubled as a search and rescue mission for the Degasi. _Some search and rescue mission we are._ And they'd come several years too late, it seemed like. Both of the vessels in question had been shot down, so they'd really had no chance. But there was something bothering him. He'd thought this world entirely uninhabited by sentient life, so what, or who, had shot them down? Was it the mysterious 'She' that had been mentioned in the son's logs? If so where was she? Why had she shot them down? Had she thought that these ships were a threat? Was it possible she was just indiscriminately killing?

He had to get to the bottom of this, but could do no more investigating tonight. He went to bed, he would deal with this in the morning.

That morning Gray got up early, ate a full meal, and packed several bottles of filtered water for the trip. He made a few repairs on his sea moth to put it back in optimal condition, and then set out. The water was gray in the early morning light, the world felt so peaceful. It was hard to believe there were monsters living somewhere in these waters, it also made him wonder if there was maybe something worse lurking in its depths.

The crab squid lurking in the grand reef were pretty terrifying looking, and they were aggressive, but also slow. It wasn't hard to get away from them, he could probably out strip them even without his seamoth.

He had visited the grand reef before, but hadn't mapped it out entirely. He had yet to come across the base, which at least told him it was in the unmapped portion. The light here was faint, and green, coming mostly off the bioluminescent plants and animals. The mood down here was much darker, more eerie, than in the safe shoals where he lived. He couldn't imagine why the people before him would want to live down here, in this darkness. The feeling of being watched was even worse here, like there was someone right behind him, peering over his shoulder.

He searched for hours, but he'd named the Grand Reef that way because it was huge, there was a lot of area to search. Not to mention it went down very deep. He could spend days searching this reef and still not find the base he was looking for. He kept the map on his PDA updated, noting crash sites and resource rich environments. His map was quickly becoming his most important survival tool. If he hadn't thought to make it he might have starved within his first week. He no longer had to search blindly for the things he needed, usually, he already had found something and marked it on his map. It was a pity he had yet to find the base in this area.

He spent the next few hours scanning the reef, marking everywhere he went so he wouldn't have to remember. He went down further, following the lines of the reef, avoiding crab squids, and just when he was about to give up, he saw it, looming in the distance. He hadn't held out any hope for this base to be any different from the last, so he was unsurprised when he got closer and saw the shattered glass of the observatory.

He left his sea moth and swam into the broken base, picking up a PDA on the way. There was a growbed with drowned plants in it as well, and a few bottles of filtered water. He took them and left, heading for the surface. When his sea moth breached he saw that it was night, he'd been down at the grand reef all day. He drove home and docked his sea moth in the moonpool, climbing out and yawning. As much as he wanted to get to the bottom of things, he was tired, he had no idea how late it was, but he needed some sleep.

X

Gray wasn't sure what had woken him up that night, well nearly morning. The lights of his base were off, which was strange, he hadn't done anything to use his stored power. He threw off his blankets, blinking lazily, his eyes only half open as he climbed out of bed and padded slowly into the main room, using the wall as a guide in the dark. He glanced around the room when he entered, and spotted something strange outside the window.

It was a girl, but not a normal girl. Gray blinked slowly again, thinking that this was a very strange dream indeed, as he padded across the room, placing a hand on the cold glass. It did not occur to him that these sensations were too real to be a dream, he thought only of the woman outside of his window, floating in the sea. She seemed to be _made_ of sea, like her body was formed entirely out of water yet somehow remained defined from the water around her. Gray kept his sleepy gaze on the woman in the water, the woman _of_ the water, and smiled lazily when they made eye contact. Her eyes were the color of the deepest depths of this alien sea, and they were beautiful.

They widened when he smiled at her, and her head quirked to the side, something like her hair, but not her hair, because it was just water, fanned out behind her when she performed the action. _She's cute_ , he thought. _What a strange dream to be having, indeed_ , he thought, as the gray sea lightened a bit. It was still a few hours before sunrise, he should get to sleep.

He turned and left, waving over his shoulder at the strange dream woman. He went back to sleep, and did not remember his dream when he awoke.

X x

Gray yawned and stretched, he felt unusually tired, though he couldn't fathom why. He grabbed some cured meat from one of his lockers and was pleased to see when he climbed into the room above him that his trees had started bearing fruit. He picked one, it was huge, and climbed back down the ladder to enjoy breakfast at his desk, looking out at the beautiful, strange, ocean. He wondered if he would ever get over the feeling that the ocean was watching him right back.

After he finished his breakfast he pulled out his PDA to read over the logs from last night. From what he read, the son, Bart, half admired, half feared the mercenary woman, Marguerite. That was the only PDA, and it only had one entry, but there was a voice recording, of Paul and Marguerite arguing. From the argument, it sounded like she wanted to go even deeper.

 _Deeper,_ he thought, incredulously. _What could she possibly want down there?_

If he were going to go looking for more clues he would need pressure modules and a Cyclops- a submarine. For those things he would need more resources, and quite a few of them. He wondered where he could go that would be even farther down. He hadn't found any big drop offs as of yet, but, that didn't mean there wasn't a place he hadn't seen. It didn't matter for right now anyway, he would have to spend a few days gathering enough resources to build a submarine and pressure compensators so the hull wouldn't buckle under the pressure.

As Gray went farther down into the ocean, the feeling of being watched only grew, it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, but somehow also felt familiar. It was a strange sensation, and as he traveled deeper into the bowels of this world the ocean grew stiller. At first he was surprised about how large the caverns under the sea were, but the awe he felt for their size was overcome by his awe for this world's strange, terrible beauty.

After weeks of searching the cavern biomes and watching his map grow; he was about ready to give up. He had been searching a place filled with giant glowing mushroom like plants that served as a home to aggressive giant worm creatures. One had surprised him and nearly taken his leg off when he'd left his cyclops to scan one of the plants. He hadn't left his cyclops since then, and he hadn't went back to the surface, sleeping in his submarine in the interest of time. He'd placed a grow bed in the cyclops and was now growing his food on the go. It was one of his best ideas yet.

He was just about to turn his Cyclops around and call it quits when he saw it looming through the gloom. Right there was the base that he'd been looking for. He got as close as he could with his Cyclops, marked the base on his map, and left to investigate the ruins. He found a PDA, and that was it. There was nothing else left of the survivors of the Degasi.

 _Came out of nowhere. An alien kraken, size of a cyclops. Tore a hole clear through the reinforced hull. Barely got my breather in in time. I told her. I said others would come._

 _I was thrown clear of the habitat, and the thing turned and bore down on me. Just as its tentacles came within grasping reach, Maida came out of nowhere. She had a seaglide in one hand, and a jagged piece of scrap metal in the other. She meant to butcher that beast, or die trying. The last I saw her she had the metal lodged in its neck and was clinging on as the monster did its best to shake her, contorting off into the darkness. I'm certain she got her wish, one way or the other._

 _Then I thought I saw a light, deep below me. I hoped maybe Bart had swum clear. I followed it. Now I wonder whether I saw anything at all. My oxygen is low. The habitat is gone. I can't see the sky. Something surely has the scent of my blood._

That was the end of it. Gray sat soberly in his Cyclops, a sinking feeling in his gut. He wondered briefly how this PDA had found its way back inside the base, but what really got him was the description of the attack. Paul had thought he saw a light. It was possible that it had been Bart, Gray knew he had escaped. Now the other PDA from the island made sense, this was the event that Bart had been referring too. Had the Alien kraken been the "She" that Bart said didn't trust them?

There was a funny feeling in the air, and one in his gut saying there was still more to this mystery, he just couldn't figure it out yet. He needed to get to the coordinates that the shot that took down the Aurora had come from.

X x x

The cyclops breached, and the morning sky greeted Gray like an old friend, but the rest of it didn't make sense. There was nothing there, no island, no base under the surface, nothing.

"What in the hell?" He said. He'd gotten into the habit of talking to himself to fill the silence.

There was nothing here, and nothing in sight, maybe the gps was wrong, maybe it had malfunctioned and given him the wrong coordinates, the damage to the Aurora had been catastrophic after all, the GPS calibration had probably been knocked off kilter in the impact or something.

For all intents and purposes the investigation was over, there was nothing else he could do to find out what happened. He had found everything there was about the Degasi except the crash site itself, he had gotten the Aurora black box and checked out the origin of the projectile that had taken them down, there was nothing else for him to do but to live until he died. Except he couldn't accept that. He needed to find out more, he _needed_ to keep searching. Maybe it was his loneliness talking, he'd been here, alone, for months, and no further communications had come through his relay. Maybe he was just so desperate to be doing _something_ that he was inventing a mystery to keep occupied.

But there was something bugging him, _something_ , some sense that there was more to this, and he had to follow it, even if he was imagining things, even if this feeling he had never panned out. It's not like he had anything else to do anyway.

That thought drained the last bit of energy he had; he turned his cyclops wearily towards home. All of this could wait until he had slept in his own bed again.

When he woke next he got to his feet and walked into the main room to look out the window. The sea was dark, speckled by various glowing fish and plants, and it was beautiful. This planet, this ocean. It had to be one of the most magnificent places in the galaxy, it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever experienced, and yet the sight of it filled him with the most profound sadness, and loneliness. _That's not how it's supposed to be,_ he thought gloomily, _beautiful things are supposed to fill you with peace, and joy, they aren't supposed to remind you of your pain, they aren't supposed to make you feel hopeless and alone. This isn't how it's supposed to be. This isn't how it's supposed to go._

He took a long look at his family photo, committing their faces to memory, then tucked the frame inside his suit, he would be carrying them with him as a totem, to remind him to keep fighting. He would get to the bottom of this, he would follow this feeling in his gut until he found what he was looking for.

He didn't waste any time looking at the places he had already been, and he was once again grateful that he had taken to mapping everywhere he went. He spent a little bit of time in the unexplored parts of the biomes he had already discovered, then he began looking for ways to follow the little piece of his soul urging him to go deeper, deeper.

It took him a while to find a hole in the rocks that would fit his cyclops, and as seemed to be the trend in his life now, it happened right before he was about to give up and take the rest of his journey in his sea moth. Just a few minutes later he was glad he didn't. He turned through the hole and came out into a vast empty space, once again amazing him at the size of the underground world. For one wild second he thought this world might be completely hollow, that he would be able to follow these caves straight through the center of the world to the other side.

He knew that was irrational, but it was hard to believe this world had a solid core when he was so far beneath the surface and he couldn't see the ground below or above him, only the towering pillars of rock that dotted the landscape. He marked this on his map, then turned back towards his window. His jaw dropped when his eyes landed on what he knew, as soon as he saw it, was what had killed the Degasi Survivors.

It was enormous, at least the size of the Cyclops, maybe bigger. It had long clawed fins at its front and tentacles at its end to propel it, with glowing bulges along its side. As he watched it it roared, a bone shaking, blood chilling battle cry, and it spat out fire. _Fire,_ he thought, _underwater. How is that even possible?_ Quickly he flipped off the inside and outside lights, hoping to go unnoticed by the monster.

He stood, holding his breath, hands clenching the steering wheel, as the monster passed above his head. As it passed by he noticed the formation of the scales around its head, almost like a crown. The words for this monster came into his head, unbidden. _Sea Emperor._ The Sea Emperor passed over his head, harmlessly. He waited a few minutes after the last echo of its roar faded, then he switched his lights back on and continued going.

Something inside him kept pressing him forward, the anticipation was killing him, he thought his heart would pound out of his chest. His hands were clenching the steering wheel just like before, but this time it wasn't out of fear. His breath was coming quick and fast, and more than once he got alerts that he was about to collide with an unseen obstacle. His impatience was making him reckless, and if he wasn't careful he would punch a hole through his cyclops and have to swim all the way back to his base.

At last, he maneuvered his cyclops around a tight corner, and what he saw took his breath away. It was unmistakably a castle, carved out of the stone itself, it was a part of this world, and it was obvious what whoever built it was trying to convey with it. _I am the ruler here, this world belongs to me, it is wholly mine._ When he got closer something else odd caught his attention, there were no sharp lines or cuts in the stone, it was all smooth, almost like the stones had been worn into this shape, like the ocean itself had carved this castle into the rock for that which it acknowledged as it's guardian. Was he about to meet the mysterious She?

He left his Cyclops and swam toward a grand entryway that no doubt served as the main entrance, but who was coming and going? Once he got even closer he was more certain that no one had carved this castle by hand, but that didn't make sense. Perhaps the tides had simply worn away the architecture over the years, made the once sharp edges smooth and rounded. Something about that assumption didn't feel right though.

His sensation of being watched only increased as he passed through the threshold, as if someone was standing mere inches behind him. He resisted the urge to look over his shoulder. The entryway to the castle was cavernous, with two ramps leading up to a higher floor on either side of him, like two grand staircases. He ignored them and swum up to the next floor, vaguely wondering why a palace underwater needed a staircase.

If there was a throne room, it would likely be at the center of the castle, up the enormous stairways and in the center of everything. A ruler would want to make an impression, and that certainly did. He didn't know why he was looking for a throne room, only that he was, and that he needed to see what was inside of it, no matter what.

The further inside he got, the more frantic he became to reach his destination, like some unknown force was pulling him along by a string, and if he didn't follow it he would be consumed; so follow it he did, hardly bothering to take note of his surroundings. There was sea life growing on the walls, which upon first glance would seem like a sign of disrepair, but if he had cared to look closely he would have seen that the different flora and fauna were growing in intricate patterns, not anything that would have occurred naturally, which meant someone or something had put it there intentionally.

He felt as if this hallway were unending, and if he didn't make it to the end he would never make it at all. He had lost sight of all reason and now thought of only one thing, getting to the throne room. Nothing else mattered. He thought his heart was going to burst before he got there, until at last he came upon the entrance. No other room in the palace would have such a grand and elaborate doorway.

He kicked out as hard as he could and nearly collided with the doors in his eagerness to get through them. They were heavy, almost too heavy for him to move, he strained and struggled, pulling with all his might before the door cracked open, and then swung out smoothly, displacing the water around him so it tickled his skin. He kicked again, shooting several feet into the room, and that's when he saw her, and all of the air rushed out of him.

She was sitting on a large stone throne, carved to look like the Sea Emperor, so that she sat on it's back, just behind the head, and her back rested gently on its tentacles, raised up to support her.

She was there, but she wasn't there. Her body was defined, but blurred, and he could see right through her, but he could also see her. She was made of water, but she wasn't. There was something else about her, something he couldn't quite place. Her hair rested gently on her shoulder and cascaded down her back, but that was just as clear as the rest of her. He couldn't understand why he could see her, how she existed, how she was made of water, but somehow different from the water around her.

Was he hallucinating? Was this perhaps a dream? Was he actually still in his bed, safe and sound, and not face to face with the strangest, most beautiful thing he'd ever seen? All of this stopped mattering to him when he looked into her eyes, the deepest most beautiful blue, just like the depths of this very sea. All at once the dream he'd had all those weeks ago came back to him, except now he knew it wasn't a dream, it was reality, and suddenly everything made sense.

This girl, who was the ocean, and yet wasn't, had commanded the sea to construct this palace, it was she that had shot down the Aurora and the Degasi when they'd gotten too close to her home, and it was she that he had felt watching him for all this time. He'd thought it was just his imagination, but it wasn't, she had even visited him at his base in the shallows. Why had she done that? She had allowed him to live when he was certain she could have ended his life as easily as she had shot down the Aurora and the Degasi.

And now both of those things made sense. She had been trying to protect her home, her planet, her life when she'd taken down those aircraft. She had thought them invaders, and for all intents and purposes they had been, they had entered this planet's gravitational pull- her territory- without her permission. Any craft sent to rescue him from this planet would meet the same fate. She would not allow anyone to breach her waters, which once again begged the question, why had she let him live?

He wanted to ask her. He wanted desperately to open his mouth and ask her every question that was on his mind, but he couldn't speak through his rebreather. Just who and what was she? What was this planet, why was he alive, what was this place, how had she created it, and how had she shot down those spacecraft? Just as these thoughts occurred to him, the woman raised her arms, and the water flowed out of the room.

Gray, caught off guard, fell to the ground, but never took his eyes off of her. She was much more clearly defined now, being the only water in the room, and he marveled at her control of the sea, almost like it was a part of her, but then again, maybe it was. Her feet made small pattering sounds when they touched the floor, like drops of water falling from the ceiling of a cave. He was frozen on the spot, mesmerized as she approached him slowly and silently, until she was right next to him.

She knelt, so they came face to face, mere inches from each other, and reached out for him. Even Gray's breathing stopped as her fingers gently grasped his goggles and slid them off his head. They clattered to the ground behind him, jarringly loud in the silence. Next she pulled his rebreather from his mouth, and his breathing started up again, jagged and shallow. And finally, her fingers slid beneath the edges of his wetsuit cap, the first time she had touched his actual body, and pushed it back. Her fingers slid through his hair, raising chill bumps all over his body.

It was a curious sensation, being touched by a body made of water, solid, but not. He couldn't find the words to describe it. He couldn't find any words at all. His mind was completely blank as he stared into her eyes, eyes blue like the ocean she commanded so easily. Her eyes followed the movements of her hands, until his hood rested gently on his shoulders, and then they turned up to his.

They were filled with curiosity, as if he were the marvel, the strange, unknown, magical creature that could control the sea. Perhaps he was marvel to her, she seemed just as mesmerized by him as he was by her, maybe more so. Her head tilted slightly to the side as she observed him, her fingers trailing along the lines of his wetsuit. The first coherent thought he had had since laying eyes on her floated in and out of his mind again like a cloud.

 _Cute._

Her eyes landed on his hand and she picked it up and brought it up to her face, examining it carefully. She grazed her fingers over the back of his hand, then turned it over, gazing at his palm like it held the mysteries of the universe. She moved each of his fingers individually, moving them side to side, then forwards and backwards, as if she were looking at a lab specimen, researching an interesting new species and she was determined to find out all of its secrets.

She was very careful not to hurt him, all of her touches were gentle, though he somehow had the feeling that if she had chosen to crush him in her hands like paper she could have. Though her face and mood pervaded clam, she had an aura of power that he couldn't miss. Like a storm just finished, or about to start, with enormous destructive potential that he never would have guessed belonged to any living being.

Once she finished with his fingers she began rolling his wrist, moving closer to him so she could reach him better. Her hands felt cold through his wetsuit, though the water from her body didn't seep through to his skin. His hair was starting to dry, he could feel it beginning to stand up in its natural messy mop.

She focused intensely on his arm as she bent and turned it, moving even closer when she moved past his wrist to his elbow. His breathing hitched again, and if she noticed, she didn't react. She was engrossed in her examination of his joints, and Gray once again thought that she was cute, if not strange, entertained as she was by the way his body worked. Her brow furrowed slightly as his upper body leaned forward when she turned his arm around too far backwards. This transitioned her attention from her elbow to his shoulder.

She was right next to him now, her leg pressed against his. He wondered if, when touching him her thighs would keep their shape or deform. Maybe he would just pass right through her if she wasn't actively trying to move him. He didn't look down to see, however, he kept his eyes trained on her face, watching her as she manipulated his joints to see how they worked. Her hand pressed flat on his back and slid across his shoulders, under his hood, her other hand pressed on his chest, sliding up to his shoulder, feeling how his arm was attached to the rest him.

He wondered vaguely why he was allowing her to examine him like this, why he was sitting still as she moved him back and forth. She didn't seem like a threat, at least, not at the moment. She blinked in surprise as her hand passed over his heart and she felt it beating, a little harder, perhaps, than was normal. She now shifted so she was mostly in front of him, her left hand holding his shoulder in place and her right over his heart.

They were both completely still for several minutes, she kept feeling his heartbeat, like she expected it to suddenly stop, and when it didn't she looked up at him again, her brow furrowed, like he was a curious puzzle to be solved. Her hand lifted from his heart and she brushed her fingers against his jaw. Then she surprised him by speaking.

"What are you?" He was astounded by the question. It had never occurred to him that there was a place in the galaxy where someone wouldn't know what a human was. Not to mention, there had been the Degasi survivors, who had lived in her oceans eight years ago.

"I'm a human," he replied, surprised by how casual his voice sounded.

"Human?" She repeated, the word sounded like a question. He nodded. "There were others before you." He nodded again. "Did you know them?" He shook his head. "Humans are invaders, conquering that which is not theirs. How did you get here?"

"I was in the spaceship you shot down."

"Did your people come here to invade my waters?" Gray shook his head.

"They were here to look for the people that came before."

"They died many years ago."

"I know."

"They attacked my creatures without reason, my creatures did nothing to them, and they attacked them. My creatures took revenge for their kin." Gray nodded, this fit with what he had learned from their PDAs.

"What are you?" He asked, once again looking her over, amazed.

"I am the sea," she answered simply. He blinked, but didn't press further, mainly because she had begun running her hands through his hair, distracting him.

"What is this place?"

"My home, I created it long ago." She took his face gently in her hands and began turning his head this way and that as she had done with his wrist, testing his flexibility. He let her, and closed his eyes, thinking all the movement would make him dizzy. She stopped moving his head long enough to brush his hair away from his ears and trace the edge of it with one of her fingers. Thankfully, he didn't find out what it would feel like if she were to put her finger in his ear canal, as she didn't seem to think it was necessary. Lyon giving him wet willies came to mind, and he pushed the thought away.

"Why didn't you kill me like you killed the others?" He asked eventually, as she moved around him to examine his right shoulder, now running her hand along it, palm down, to feel his muscles. His arms had bulked up recently, he'd been doing quite a bit of swimming.

"I was curious. You didn't kill my creatures without reason, and you stopped that thing from leaking it's poison into me." She must have meant the Aurora, and when he'd stopped the radiation leak.

"The other life pods…" he began, then trailed away, not sure how to phrase this question. "The other, smaller ships, with more humans like me that came from the big ship, what happened to them?"

"My creatures get hungry," she said ominously. He fell silent. This woman didn't seem bad, she just seemed peaceful, and like she wanted to protect herself and her world. Could he really blame her for shooting down the crafts if she had thought she was in danger? After all, she'd had no way of knowing that the Aurora hadn't planned on landing here.

"How did you shoot us down?"

"I used my power." Another vague answer, but he decided once again not to press her.

"I-do you have a name?" He asked.

"Juvia."

"Hey, Juvia, my name is Gray."

"Hello Gray."

"Are there more of you?" He asked, "do you have a family?"

"I am alone." There was a moment's silence before she returned the question.

"I have a mother named Ur, and a brother named Lyon."

"What are they like?" She asked, half surprising Gray.

"My mom is kind, but strict, and my brother is so annoying."

"Did you not like him?" She asked curiously, moving around to face him once more.

"No, that's not it, I love him, but he gets on my nerves. Siblings don't normally get along."

"Love," she repeated, seeming like that was the only part of the sentence she picked up on. "I love my creatures." Gray didn't know how to respond to that, so he kept quiet.

"If you're alone, why did you build this big castle?" He asked suddenly, surprising her as she attempted to pull off his flippers.

"I was not always so, but my people left me long ago."

"Why?" He asked.

"They used their power to go to other worlds and become their seas. Only I remained to care for this world. I will not allow it to be invaded."

"I understand," he said. "You have to protect yourself and your planet." She nodded, finally managing to pull his flipper off and lifting his foot. He squirmed a bit when she ran her finger over the bottom of his foot. She looked up at him. "That tickled," he explained. He wondered if she understood, he didn't know if women made of water could be tickled.

She seemed surprised when his toes displayed a far more limited range of movement than his fingers, but apparently she liked his pinky toe, as she giggled when she discovered it. Her laugh was cute, too. She spent some time testing out his ankle, apparently satisfied with its range of movement. She moved closer to him to test out his knee, frowning when it didn't move from side to side. He was just thinking he was going to have to draw the line before she moved any higher up when a roar outside made him jump. It was the Sea Emperor.

"My cyclops!" He exclaimed, thinking about the picture of his family he had left inside it.

"My guard will not harm your vehicle." She started to move closer to him, probably intending to investigate the flexibility of his hips, but he seized her hands and drew her so close their noses were almost touching. It was the first time he had touched her instead of the other way around, she looked startled by it. Her eyes flitted from his eyes to the scar on his forehead where the sheet metal had hit him during the planetfall. She slipped her hand from his and ran her thumb along the raised skin.

"Please, my family, the only photo I have is in there!"

"Photo?" He paused briefly, wondering how to explain it to her.

"It's like an image of my family, captured on paper, so it can't get wet."

"I will send the guard away," she said. So she had some level of control over the sea creatures, that was interesting.

"Do you miss your people?" Gray asked, "I miss my family."

"They have been gone for many years."

"That's not what I asked," he prodded.

"I do wish I weren't alone," she admitted.

"Well you're not alone now," he replied.

"So it would seem."


End file.
